South Carolina’s new basketball coach knows people see him as this big, bombastic brute who yells while brushing his teeth and frightens squirrels off bird feeders with one glance of his crazy-eyed glare.

“I understand,” he says with a smile. “I do it to myself. I understand there’s a perception of me because my emotion and my passion on the sideline. I understand, 100 percent.”

He also knows he’s not always that guy. He knows the only people who think he’s that guy are the people who never have gotten to know him.

When Martin left Kansas State to replace Darrin Horn at South Carolina in late March, that group of people included his new players. “When I first found out, I got kind of nervous,” junior point guard Eric Smith says. “You see him on TV, and I’m thinking, ‘I don’t know if I can handle playing for a coach like that.’ ”

And that’s where Martin starts with pretty much everybody. Because they think they know Frank Martin, the coach whose intense sideline rants make for great television highlights, they make assumptions about Frank Martin, the person.

They are wrong.

TEACHING MOMENTS

Frank Martin misses everything about being a math teacher.

Well, everything except having his department head at Miami Senior High breathing down his neck about lesson plans. Not having that is refreshing.

The pressure of being a big-time basketball coach—and, after leading K-State to four NCAA Tournament appearances in his five seasons, that’s exactly what Martin is—is easy compared to being a math teacher. “You know what pressure is?” Martin says. “Pressure is having 35 Algebra I students with 27 desks and 19 textbooks, and your responsibility is to teach those kids every day for 180 school days. That’s pressure.”

Teaching math while coaching high school basketball—he spent 15 years at the prep level, eight as an assistant and seven as a head coach—didn’t just help him learn about dealing with pressure. It also taught him about dealing with people.

“I had a young man one time, a sophomore who was struggling,” he says. “We’re in the middle of a lesson one day, and he raises his hand. He says, ‘Coach, why are we doing this? I’m never going to do algebra in my life.’ ”

As Martin tells the story, sitting in his office in the South Carolina basketball practice facility in late October, he pauses as his mind drifts back into that classroom.

“I’m one of those believers in those powerful moments, where what you say can impact something in a positive or negative way. And in that one moment, I knew he was vulnerable, and he was looking for guidance in that question he asked. I said, ‘You’re right. You’re never going to do algebra in your life, but mathematics teaches you logic, teaches you how to solve a problem. And when you get to be my age, you spend every day of your life trying to fix problems. That’s why you have to develop your mind.’ He kind of sat back and looked at me, and he didn’t say anything. By the end of the year, that guy was doing everything we asked of him in math class. Now, I don’t know if that moment had anything to do with it, but it’s my belief that one teaching moment can impact a person in a positive way.”

It’s clear that particular moment impacted the teacher as much as, if not more so, than the student.

NO SLACKERS ALLOWED

The perception of Martin as an intimidating figure isn’t completely wrong, of course.

Senior forward Lakeem Jackson vividly recalls the first time he was on the receiving end of The Glare from his 6-3, 270-pound coach. “All I can say is I ran for a really long time,” he says with a laugh, and then a bit of a shiver. “I deserved it, though. That’s the thing. If you deserve it, you’re going to get it. But if you make a good play, he’s going to let you know that, too.”

Martin doesn’t need a whistle. His voice is more than enough to halt practice for a bit of instruction or correction—and those are needed often with this group of mostly young, inexperienced players at South Carolina—but it never starts at a high volume. There are varying tones of annoyance as he says, “stop, stop,” but the voice opens so softly that his new players had to adjust. “You definitely have to be alert out there and listening for the coaches at all times,” Smith says. “It takes some getting used to.”

Associate head coach Brad Underwood and assistant coach/recruiting coordinator Matt Figger run the drills as Martin continually walks, with a slight limp, from one end of the court to the other. Considering Martin has had four surgeries on each knee, it’s amazing that he moves around as well as he does. His right knee “exploded” in the spring of 1984—he put off surgery until early 1985—and he first tore up his left knee in 1990. A practice mishap at Kansas State during the 2010-11 season pretty much ended his physical participation in practice.

“I got so frustrated, I got in a drill and I tried to cut, and as soon as I cut, I felt it,” he says. “I finished practice and knew it wasn’t good.”

He’s still an ever-present verbal participant, though. Like every coach in America, Martin has little tolerance for anything other than complete hustle and he lets his players know his displeasure. Loudly. Having to repeat instructions isn’t a favorite thing of his, either. As was the case at Kansas State, the South Carolina players get away with few mistakes during practice.

“Any slacking, he’ll get on you,” senior LaShay Page says. “He’ll get on me a lot if I’m slacking, especially with me being a fifth-year guy, a leader, he expects me to bring it every day. When I’m slacking, he lets me know it. That’s what I love most about him.

“He’s brutally honest with you. He’s not going to sugarcoat it. If you’re not working hard, he’s going to let you know.”

That brutal honesty is a big reason Page is part of Martin’s program.

A 6-2 guard, Page averaged 11.6 points for a Southern Miss team that made the NCAA Tournament this spring—and lost to Martin’s K-State squad in its opener. When he chose to transfer for his final season of eligibility, South Carolina was a natural option. He’s from Dillon, S.C., and he wanted to be closer to family after his mother died in February.

And when the Gamecocks tabbed Martin as their new head coach, his decision was made.

“Playing against him and seeing him on the sidelines, I loved every bit of it,” Page says. “That’s what inspired me to come to this program and want to help him win. He’s a great coach; he’s not going to let you take days off. He’s going to stay on you, a hard-nosed coach, like playing for Larry Eustachy (at Southern Miss). I didn’t want to go anything below that. Coach Martin was great for me.”

CHANGING OPINIONS

Martin doesn’t hide his intense, aggressive style of coaching. He has recruits come to practice with their high school coaches before they decide to play for him; he wants them to know exactly what they’re signing up for. Those players who knew Martin only from television highlights—the ones who were already at South Carolina—already have changed their opinions of their new coach.

“Off the court, coach Frank is a really nice, down-to-earth guy,” Jackson says. “It’s not what everybody thinks with the yelling and everything. He cracks a lot of jokes. It’s cool.”

And it’s not quite so bad on the court, either. The quality of his encouragement and support matches the intensity and quantity of his correction. The players appreciate that.

“I thought he’d be a lot meaner than he actually is,” Smith says. “Even as he’s coaching us, I thought it would be worse than that, just because that’s how they make it seem on TV. But it’s definitely something you can deal with. I’m enjoying myself.”

That transformation isn’t unusual. Martin is every bit as loyal as he is demanding, and that loyalty is reciprocated. In the summer of ’11, 14 of his former high school players from Miami showed up to work Martin’s camps at Kansas State, including NBA players Udonis Haslem and Steve Blake. During the NBA lockout, Blake spent six days shadowing Martin, talking basketball and studying how his former coach ran practices.

Larry Johnson, the former UNLV and NBA star, told Martin during a golf tournament that he would have loved to play for Martin and his intense style. Baron Davis said the same thing at a charity dinner. Robert Horry, the seven-time NBA champion, approached him in a hotel lobby in Los Angeles once and said, “ ‘Coach, I don’t care what anyone ever says, don’t ever change. Those young people need people like you in their lives,’ ” Martin recalls.

Martin doesn’t say these things to name drop. He tells them because that type of unsolicited support means a great deal to him. He knows what some people say about him, remember?

“There’s this myth that parents don’t want discipline in their children’s lives, that they don’t want people to instill that passion in their lives,” Martin says. “My answer to that is, I know the people who contact me, and if that’s the case, why do good players always wind up playing for me? This is going back 27 years. How do I always end up with good players?

“I’m sure there are people who don’t agree with how I do things, just like I don’t agree with their things. But I know that my interest is genuine for people. I go home at night and I sleep in peace because I know the kind of commitment that I have to the people in our organization, from our coaches to staff to our players.”

THE WELCOME MAT

Martin has immersed himself in his new university.

He’s attended Gamecock volleyball games and baseball games and spread himself thin while meeting with all sorts of groups on and off campus.

And the powers-that-be at the school have done their best to introduce him to his new fan base. Before the Georgia football game in early October, a stadium-record 85,199 fans roared their approval of Martin’s on-field pregame speech.

“I’ve been in front of large groups of people and spoken to large groups of people in different venues ... so I kind of know what’s in front of me,” Martin says. “But when I was on the field for that moment, my heart was racing. You could feel the passion from the stands on the field.”

Passion recognizes passion.

That experience, standing with his new players on the field, was yet another confirmation for him that he’s in the right place. The fact Martin, a 46-year-old Miami native who has lots of family in that area, is back near an ocean doesn’t hurt, either. His face lights up as he says, “An hour and fifteen minutes and I can see the water.”

Becoming part of the local basketball community is important, too. Word quickly spread that Martin’s practices are open to high school and small-college coaches, and there have been at least two or three schools represented every time the gym is unlocked.

“As an old high school coach, I know I was always looking for ideas, watching other teams practice,” Martin says. “I used to try and take my teams to watch college teams practice as much as possible, so the kids understand that what I’m telling them is reality—look how much bigger and stronger they are, and the speed everyone practices with in college.”

COLLEGE BASKETBALL 2012-13

THE CHALLENGE

It’s all part of building his new program at his new university.

This season, though, could be rough in terms of wins and losses.

Last year, South Carolina went 10-21 overall and 2-14 in the SEC. Leading scorer Malik Cooke (12.3 points per game) finished his eligibility. Anthony Gill (7.6 points) and Damontre Harris (6.8 points) transferred after Martin was named coach. Point guard Bruce Ellington, who averaged 11.0 points, won’t join the team until after football season ends.

Aside from Ellington, the top six returning players averaged between 12.3 and 21.0 minutes per game. More will be expected from them.

“My job, I came here to help those kids,” Martin says. “They didn’t come here to lose. They came here to win, and my job is to help them get to that place, that moment.”

Page, who is eligible immediately as a graduate transfer, will shoulder much of the scoring load, and freshmen Michael Carrera, Mindaugas Kacinas and Laimonas Chatkevicius—all signed by Martin, by the way—could make an impact, too. This season will be an eternal work in progress, though.

The challenges during Martin’s first year at his new program are similar to the challenges from his days as a math teacher at Miami Senior High. Sure, the conditions have improved—his ratio of basketballs-to-players is much better than his textbooks-to-students ratio—but Martin’s driving motivation hasn’t changed one fraction.

“My passion is for people. My passion is to help people. My passion is to help people find success, which is not easy. That’s hard,” he says. “When we try to tell people that everything’s going to be OK when things are not going right and people are not performing the right way, then we’re fooling them. We’re not being realistic with them.

“We have to make sure people understand things will be OK, but you’d better put your head down and stay the course and be disciplined and respectful of everyone around you, so you can get to the other side of that difficult moment. That’s what I try to do.”